


To Open the Future Wide

by Merfilly



Series: Growing Up Jedi [17]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Force Unleashed - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 05:00:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10268819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: They fight, with one brave girl opening the way for defeat of the enemy.





	

The convergence of all parts of the fight on the chamber Anakin Skywalker was laying upon the altar erupted into the exact layers of chaos that Mara had predicted. Mace and Ponds provided the opening salvo, as they were known to be present and close. Mace's purple blade caught Sidious's lightning and held it as he advanced, intent on trying to keep this from moving to the second half of Mara's plan.

In the midst of getting her second wrist free, Mara knew the Sith was questing, probing at her mind, and she put up the expected struggle, fighting the intrusion. She knew, all too well, the risk she was running, that this was why her own crystal sang the siren song of one almost overcome by Darkness. The visions of that other world were strong, reinforced when the faint screams of ' **you will kill Luke Skywalker** ' overlapped actually seeing the pair of Kenobi and Skywalker enter the fray, with the elder master hurrying to join Mace, while Luke went straight for rescuing Galen.

Ahsoka's arrival, her explosive offense against Sidious, who was cackling madly, lightning and red lightsabers holding all three Jedi at bay, marked the point where Mara 'buckled', Sidious's manipulations opening to a full connection between them. On the altar, Anakin began to move, also provoked by the puppet strings in his psyche.

Mara Jade Tano, daughter by choice to the heir of Yoda's lineage, trained by Mace Windu himself, smiled as she summoned her lightsaber off the droid that Ponds had blasted to pieces. The crystal hummed in accordance with all that she was, and Mara chased the puppet strings back to their owner, rather than give way to the demands that she stop Luke Skywalker.

* * *

Count Dooku of Serenno had been using the Force and esoteric artifacts to prolong his life-force, eschewing the more unnatural path his Master took, of crafted bodies to move his psyche to. Yet, for all that he had managed to keep himself in prime health, Dooku realized he had made an error about two minutes into his battle with the Dathomiri witch. They were in a Temple littered with the corpses of a long gone war, one that was imbued by the powerful presence of a Sith holocron, one that had rejected all attempts to removed it from its resting place so far by Sidious alone.

The Dathomir Nightsisters had long perfected the ability to channel their dead, and others, into a power that was nigh unstoppable, and it was quite obvious Asajj Ventrss had embraced her true heritage fully. These might not be her dead, but they hungered for more conquest, more killing, in a way that could not be denied when a necromancer called upon them to rise.

The man that had ruled the Separatists as Darth Tyranus, who had manipulated the galaxy to its very knees, discovered that neither lightning nor lightsabers stopped the dead that came to devour his very soul. When the distinctive hilt fell, deactivated, Asajj called it to her as almost an afterthought, and went to support the woman she had chosen as her legacy, and win back the child of Ahsoka's heart.

* * *

Sidious had his fight against three strong warriors, but he was overcharged on the Dark Side, in a freshly decanted clone body, stronger than he had ever been. It was nothing to reach out and use the commands he had placed so long ago in the Chosen One, bringing him to his side to fight. He idly set his other trap loose against the pair of younger Jedi, and focused on his triumph that was about to happen.

And then the stream of intrusive thoughts began. Glimpses of another world where he had failed shoved their way into his mind, breaking his concentration just as Kenobi tangled Skywalker's blade on his own, fighting a holding pattern that could not be countered, as those two knew one another like halves of a whole.

~Weak. Destroyed by your own apprentice. Broken by destiny. The Chosen One chose his own way. For love. Love wins.~

How was his carefully prepared trap fighting him like this? Sidious hissed and forced his will down over her, rewriting himself in her psyche just as he had done when he first found her, guided by his meditations to an infant that glowed in the Force on a useless world in a nameless city. Setting her in play had been so easy, manipulating the Jedi compassion.

~Their strength. The source of why they are surviving all your machinations. They just needed to be reminded it applied to their own members!~ Mara's voice was unwavering, as she maintained her image of who she was, child of clones, child of Light, despite those lines etched in her mind that made her his creation. The Dark had been forced on her, but she chose the Light.

Sidious lashed out in violent denial of her ability to resist, a mere child! He stabbed with both of his lightsabers into the Korun Jedi Master, abandoning the lightning in favor of dual strikes. He was able to get through the Vaapad defense, and had the satisfaction of feeling the master's pain roil the apprentice's control, letting him insinuate himself further inside her psyche, that much closer to making her his full puppet—

— when Ahsoka Tano, the author of his original plan's failure, took command of the fight and let go of the inhibitions forced on her by sharing a fight with other warriors. 

"Skyguy, shake it off!" she yelled over her shoulder where Obi-Wan and Anakin struggled, one trying to be non-lethal, and the other lost in a cloud of commands that had escaped detection by even Plo Koon, written in the voice of Sidious and entrenched by the time spent on Mortis.

"Listen to her, Anakin. Listen to me… lock him out of your mind!" Obi-Wan pleaded.

Across from the adults, for just a moment, Mara had whirled to face Luke and a now-freed Galen… and then her mother had taken Sidious's attention more fully, snapping enough of the control for Mara to grab hold of her shields, her concept of self, and race to her master's side. Knight Offee's continued guidance gave her strength to steam the damage, to fight for the elderly man's life, refusing to lose him. That need to help continued to buttress her against Sidious's increasing attempts to command her into the fight, attempts that broke the moment Anakin Skywalker threw off his own leash under the cajoling and pleading of both his former master and his former padawan.

"You gave us our opening," Mace said, coughing a little.

"Shut-up, and pretend you know how to have self-preservation, master!" Mara snapped before she pushed herself over his body an instant before a wave of explosive energy, released by Anakin and Ahsoka in tandem striking down the Sith, rolled over them all.

* * *

There was hugging, even Asajj getting caught up in a fierce one by Ahsoka who actually had not known her mentor and friend had decided to join the fight, sneaking in just barely ahead of Kenobi and Luke. Anakin glared at the woman a little, but while she had always been a cruel adversary during the war, he would grudgingly admit her offer to teach Ahsoka in the peaceful years had made his padawan a stronger Jedi than he could have shaped.

The fiercest hugs of all, were between Rex and Mara, as well as Ahsoka and Mara, before Ahsoka gripped her daughter's shoulders and shook her.

"What were you thinking, opening yourself up to him like that? Yes, I could feel and see it!" she admitted, one more part of the strange power that was Ahsoka, the reason she had always been able to anchor Anakin in the Light, when the Dark had tried to steal him away.

Mara, dropping back down to keep a hand on her Master, shook her head, smiling. "He made a mistake by letting me glimpse that other world in my vision, Mother. Because all of the vision that focused on me killing Luke? Came from the fact he had been defeated, that I was his last revenge. Once my master told me his suspicions on my history, that Palpatine had probably laid traps with me as he had uncle Anakin, I knew I just had to hold tight to who I was, and ride that connection back, to be a distraction to him.

"Then all of you would finish it off."

"It was a horrible gamble," Rex growled. "But I'm proud of you, Mara, for living up to your mother's boldness and giving us the chance to end it."

"She gets it as much from you," Obi-Wan reminded the clone trooper, arms around his padawans, both of them, even as Anakin fussed over the contusions Galen had from their capture.

"I don't feel the weight of my visions on me," Galen told them.

"Me either," Luke said softly.

"Then it's done," Mace croaked out, making Mara glare at him, flanked by Ponds. "The shatterpoints are gone, as well."

"Here's to a future unknown," Asajj murmured, and everyone, even the two vod'e, echoed the sentiment.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you, one and all, for your support on this series.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Upcoming Holidays](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14336157) by [Merfilly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly)




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